Halibel Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
by kikyokyoyahibari
Summary: Here's the sequel. It'll start to shift from the canon as it progresses with Undertaker and Grell from Kuroshitsuji.
1. The Tolerable Birthday

"Good morning," Halibel greeted the kitchen of number four, Privet Drive.

Her Aunt Petunia, who was cooking breakfast at the stove, didn't reply back to her. Her Uncle Vernon Dursley and Cousin Dudley were sitting at the table, waiting for breakfast. Halibel, who preferred to be called Bel, sat in the chair not for her aunt.

Her aunt placed breakfast in four different plates. Aunt Petunia smiled sweetly at Dudley as she placed his plate in front of him, a serving much larger than Bel's; she did the same to her husband Vernon. She placed Bel's plate in front of her as if Bel was some ticking bomb.

In fact, her entire family treated her as if she was a bomb that might go off at any moment, because Halibel 'Bel' Potter _wasn't_ a normal girl. As a matter of fact, she was as not normal as it is possible to be.

Bel Potter was a witch—a witch fresh from her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And if the Dursleys were unhappy to have her back for the holidays, it was nothing to how Bel felt. Though having Undertaker, a creepy man from the next town who Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon refuse to let her meet up with him, around did make things a bit better.

No matter how much the eccentric man and her pet snakes, brought home from when she and Undertaker would stake out at cemeteries to prevent any grave robberies, helped make things merry, she missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant stomachache. She missed the castle, with its secret passageways and ghosts, her classes (though perhaps not Snape, the Potions master who has weird mood swings towards her), the mail arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall, sleeping in her four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visiting the gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin next to the Forbidden Forest in the grounds, and, especially, Quidditch, the most popular sport in the wizarding world (six tall goal posts, four flying balls, and fourteen players on broomsticks).

All Bel's spellbooks, her wand, robes, cauldron, and top-of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick had been locked in a cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Vernon the instant Bel had come home. Luckily, Undertaker had taught her how to pick a lock. When the Dursleys go to sleep, Bel would sneak out of her room, creep downstairs, pick the lock, get out her school books, and sneaking them over to Undertaker's until there was nothing in the cupboard, not that Uncle Vernon would check that everything was still there. The Dursleys were what wizards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins), and as far as they were concerned, having a witch in the family was a matter of deepest shame. Uncle Vernon had even padlocked Bel's owl, Whitey, inside her cage, to stop her from carrying messages to anyone in the wizarding world. Bel would unlock the padlock, let her out and fly free. Bel also made sure to clean up any dead rats Whitey would bring back, so Aunt Petunia wouldn't shriek and reveal that Whitey was set free.

Bel didn't look like the rest of her family. Uncle Vernon was large and neckless, with an enormous black mustache; Aunt Petunia was horse-faced and bony; Dudley was blond, pink, and porky. Bel, on the other hand, was small and skinny, with brilliant green eyes, which she hated because of the color, and jet-black hair that went down her back. She wore round glasses, and on her forehead was a thin, lightning-shaped scar.

It was this scar that made Bel so particularly unusual, even for a witch. This scar was the only hint of Bel's very mysterious past, of the reason she had been left on the Dursleys' doorstep eleven years before.

At the age of one year old, Bel had somehow survived a curse from the greatest Dark sorcerer of all time, Lord Voldemort, whose name most witches and wizards still feared to speak. Bel's parents had died in Voldemort's attack, but Bel had escaped with her lightning scar, and somehow—nobody understood why—Voledmort's powers had been destroyed the instant he had failed to kill Bel.

So Bel had been brought up by her dead mother's sister and her husband. She had spent ten years with the Dursleys, never understanding why she kept making odd things happen without meaning to, believing the Dursleys' story that she had got her scar in the car crash that had killed her parents.

And then, exactly a year ago, Hogwarts had written to Bel, and Undertaker spilled the whole story. Bel had taken up her place at the wizard school, where she and her scar were famous…but now the school year was over, and she was back with the Dursleys for the summer, back to being treated like a dog that had rolled in something smelly.

The Dursleys hadn't even remembered that today happened to be Bel's twelfth birthday. Of course, her hopes hadn't been high; they'd never given her a real present, let alone a cake. She'd sneak over to Undertaker's today and have fun with her pet. Undertaker would always have a creepy grin stretching out on his face whenever Bel would talk to her pet snakes.

Apparently, according to her first friend from Hogwarts, Ron Weasley, talking to snakes was also unusual, even for a witch. He advised her never to reveal it. Bel, never having a reason to mention that she could talk to snakes, never said anything about it.

Uncle Vernon cleared his throat importantly and said, "Now, as we all know, today is a very important day. This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career."

'_Oh, yes. That stupid dinner party…'_ Bel thought in bitterness of her family forgetting her birthday. He'd been talking of nothing else for two weeks. Some rich builder and his wife were coming to dinner and Uncle Vernon was hoping to get a huge order from him (Uncle Vernon's company made drills).

"I think we should run through the schedule one more time," said Uncle Vernon. "We should all be in position at eight o' clock. Petunia, you will be-?"

"In the lounge," said Aunt Petunia promptly, "waiting to welcome them graciously to our home."

"Good, good. And Dudley?"

"I'll be waiting to open the door." Dudley put on a foul, simpering smile. "May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?"

"They'll _love_ him!" cried Aunt Petunia rapturously.

"Excellent, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon. Then he rounded on Bel. "And _you_?"

"I'll be sleeping over at Undertaker's, not coming back for the night," Bel said tonelessly. Once the Dursleys made preparations for the dinner party, Bel told Undertaker about it. Undertaker had come by one day to force the Dursleys to allow Bel to stay over that night (as much as they dislike Bel going over to his place, they were quite frightened of him when he showed up with Hagrid on their doorstep early one morning).

"Exactly," he said nastily. "I will lead them into the lounge, introduce you, Petunia, and pour them drinks. At eight-fifteen—"

"I'll announce dinner," said Aunt Petunia.

"And, Dudley, you'll say—"

"May I take you through to the dining room, Mrs. Mason?" Dudley said, offering his fat arm to an invisible woman.

"My perfect little gentleman!" sniffed Aunt Petunia.

"Now, we should aim to get in a few good compliments at dinner. Petunia, any ideas?"

"Vernon tells me you're a _wonderful_ golfer, Mr. Mason…_Do_ tell me where you bought your dress, Mrs. Mason…"

"Perfect….Dudley?"

"How about—'We had to write an essay about our hero at school, Mr. Mason, and _I_ wrote about _you_.'"

"And I presume Mr. Mason would ask, 'And what did you write about me, my boy?'" Bel commented in a snarky way.

Dudley raked his tiny brain of a reply; Aunt Petunia glared at her; Uncle Vernon's face turned purple, veins throbbing in his temples.

"HOW DARE YOU BELITTLE DUDLEY!" Uncle Vernon thundered, spraying spit over the table.

"But—"

"DUDLEY IS THE GREATEST SON ANYONE COULD EVER ASK FOR! DO NOT TREAT HIM WITH SUCH DISRESPECT WHEN WE'VE BEEN RAISING YOU UNDER OUR HOUSEHOLD ALL THIS TIME!"

Bel sighed and shut her mouth.

"The Masons don't know anything about you and it's going to stay that way as you stay with…that eccentric man," Uncle Vernon said forcefully. "When dinner's over, you take Mrs. Mason back to the lounge for coffee, Petunia, and I'll bring the subject around to drills. With any luck, I'll have the deal signed and sealed before the news at ten. We'll be shopping for a vacation home in Majorca this time tomorrow."

Bel couldn't feel too excited about this. She didn't think the Dursleys would like her any better in Majorca than they did on Privet Drive.

"Right—I'm off into town to pick up the dinner jackets for Dudley and me. And _you_," he snarled at Bel. "You pack up your things and go to that mad man's."

"I'm already packed," she muttered under her breath as she left the kitchen.

Bel went into her room, and picked up a duffle bag that she usually used for staking out at cemeteries. After Uncle Vernon left the driveway, Bel picked Whitey's padlock and set her free.

"Because I'm not going to be here tonight, fly over to Undertaker's, all right?" she told Whitey.

Whitey nibbled on her ear in response before flying off into the distance.

Bel watched Whitey disappear into the horizon, sighed, and left the house. As she walked over to Undertaker's, she sang under her breath:

"Happy birthday to me…happy birthday to me…"

If it hadn't been for Undertaker, she would have been spending the evening pretending not to exist. If it hadn't been for Undertaker, she wouldn't have felt so lonely. More than anything else at Hogwarts, even more than playing Quidditch, Bel missed her best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They, however, didn't seem to be missing her at all. Neither of them had written to her all summer, even thought Ron had said he was going to ask Bel to come and stay.

Bel had sent Whitey off with letters to Ron and Hermione, but Whitey came back with no response, nor did any owls visit her. Undertaker always seemed to have an unusual grin on his face whenever she mentioned this. Bel never asked why; Undertaker was weird like that.

Because underage wizards and witches aren't allowed to use magic, Bel didn't dare use her wand to find some way to communicate with her friends, nor did she tell this to the Durlseys. She knew it was only their terror that she might turn them all into dung beetles that stopped them from locking _her_ in the cupboard under the stairs with her wand and broomstick. For the first couple of weeks back, Bel had enjoyed muttering nonsense words under her breath and watching Dudley tearing out of the room as fast as his fat legs would carry him. But the long silence from Ron and Hermione had made Bel feel so cut off from the magical world that even taunting Dudley had lost its appeal—and now Ron and Hermione had forgotten her birthday.

If Undertaker hadn't nagged her to read him her spellbooks, she would've thought her year at Hogwarts was just a dream.

Not that her whole year at Hogwarts had been fun. At the very end of last term, Bel had come face-to-face with none other than Lord Voldemort himself. Voldemort might be a ruin of his former self, but he was still terrifying, still cunning, still determined to regain power. Bel had slipped through Voldemort's clutches for a second time, but it had been a narrow escape, and even now, weeks later, Bel kept waking in the night, drenched in cold sweat, wondering where Voldemort was now, remembering his livid face, his wide, mad eyes—

Bel straightened her back and widened her eyes as she looked at the window of a teddy bear store. She was staring absent-mindedly at a teddy bear whose shade of grey resembled close to Undertaker's silvery grey hair—_and the teddy bear was staring back_. Two enormous green eyes were on the grey teddy bear, though the color and size was peculiar on the grey fur.

Bel blinked. The huge eyes blinked and vanished.

Bel stared at the bear until one of the store attendants was shifting things behind the window. Bel shook her head to get rid of the image of the green eyes on the teddy bear and continued her way to Undertaker's.

Never in her life did she see large eyes on a teddy bear. Bel briefly wondered if it was a new thing among the kids to have large-eyed plushies.

She finally made it to Undertaker's store. Bel walked in.

"I'm here, Undertaker," Bel said.

"_Hee hee_ Welcome, Bel~," Undertaker greeted. Tea was wafting in the air, which was odd. Undertaker only made tea when there was a customer he liked, and he rarely liked people as much as he liked Bel.

Bel looked up to see if it was anyone she knew. Not to her surprise, it wasn't anyone she knew. What really surprised her was that it wasn't a person.


	2. Dobby's Warning

Bel stared at Undertaker's new customer. The little creature sitting on one of Undertaker's coffins had large, bat-like ears and bulging green eyes the size of tennis balls. Bel knew instantly that this was what had been staring back at her on the grey teddy bear earlier.

"He seemed interesting, so I let him in," Undertaker explained.

The creature slipped off the bed and bowed so low that the end of its long, thin nose touched the carpet. Bel noticed that it was wearing what looked like an old pillowcase, with rips for arm- and leg-holes.

"Nice to meet you…" Bel said.

"Halibel Potter!" the creature said in a high-pitched voice. "So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, miss…Such an honor it is…"

"Umm…Thank you?" Bel said, putting her duffle bag on another one of Undertaker's coffins. She had wanted to ask, "What are you?" but that would've been too rude, so she settled for "Who are you?"

"Dobby, miss. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf," said the creature.

"Really? What's a house-elf doing here?" Bel asked. "Better yet, are you sure that Undertaker didn't force you to come here?"

"Bel! That's mean! He's the one who wanted to meet you!" Undertaker protested as the elf hung his head.

"Yeah. But back then, whenever you saw a snake, you immediately want to take the snake home just so I can talk with it," Bel explained. "I just want to make sure that you didn't drag him here."

"Oh, no, miss!" Dobby said earnestly. "Dobby has come here of his own free will. Dobby has come to tell you, miss…it is difficult, miss…Dobby wonders where to begin…"

"Then sit down," Bel said, sitting on the coffin.

To her surprise, the elf burst into tears-as though touched.

"_S-sit down!_" he wailed. _"Never…never ever…"_

"I…didn't mean to offend you…."

"Offend Dobby!" choked the elf. "Dobby has n_ever_ been asked to sit down by a witch-like an _equal_-"

"Then why was he sitting on the coffin earlier?" Bel asked Undertaker who was grinning so creepily.

"Because I put him there," was Undertaker's reply.

Bel grabbed Dobby by his clothing and plopped him on the coffin opposite her. She stood up, rummaged around in her duffle bag, brought out the Undertaker doll that Undertaker had given her a birthday ago, and forced it into Dobby's hands.

"Cry into that," Bel ordered.

"Even though that's supposed to be comforting, that was rather mean, Bel~, especially because you're using my precious handmade doll to be his cry pillow," Undertaker complained childishly.

Dobby shook his head. Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the coffin, shouting, _"Bad _Dobby! _Bad_ Dobby!"

"Are all house-elfs like this?" Bel asked, holding Dobby back.

"It's their way of punishing themselves when they do something wrong," Undertaker explained as Bel produced rope from one of Undertaker's cupboards.

"They're like slaves you see. They seek masters." Now, Bel has Dobby's arms tied up behind him and tangled from the ceiling so that he won't try to hit himself.

"They aren't allowed to speak ill of the family they serve. They are bound to serve one house and one family forever. Of course only the rich families are able to employ house-elfs. House-elfs are only set free if the family hands them clothing. That's why they wore such raggy clothing. If they aren't handed clothing, then they serve the family until they die. House-elfs also have their own type of magic, different from us wizards and witches."

"Does your family know you're here?" Bel asked the tangling Dobby.

Dobby shuddered.

"Oh, no, miss, no…Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, miss. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, miss-"

"You mean, they don't try to stop you from shutting your ears in the oven door?"

"Dobby doubts it, miss. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, miss. They lets Dobby get on with it, miss. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments…."

"Sounds like his family are quite sadistic," Undertaker commented, grinning happily.

"In other words, persuading the family to set Dobby free won't do. We'll have to outsmart them into doing that," Bel said.

"Oh? You're going to help set this little poor house-elf free?"

"Of course. House-elfs may seek masters, but that doesn't entitle the masters to treat them like trash."

Then Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude.

"Halibel Potter wishes to set Dobby free…Dobby has heard of your greatness, miss, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew…"

"I don't have any greatness. I only have whatever Undertaker's taught me. If you want greatness, then you're better off with Hermione, she's the top of the year…"

She stopped because thinking about Hermione was painful.

"Halibel Potter is humble and modest," said Dobby reverently, his orb-like eyes aglow. "Halibel Potter speaks not of her triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-"

"Who? Voldemort?" Bel asked carelessly.

Dobby started swinging himself and moaned, "Ah, speak not the name, miss! Speak not the name!"

"Sorry," Bel said quickly. "I'm still getting used to the rules of the wizarding world. My friend Ron-"

She stopped again. Thinking about Ron was painful, too.

Dobby looked at Bel, his eyes wide as headlights.

"Dobby heard tell," he said hoarsely, "that Halibel Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time, just weeks ago…that Halibel Potter escaped _yet again_."

Bel nodded and Dobby's eyes suddenly shone with tears.

"Ah, miss," he gasped, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Halibel Potter is valiant and bold! She has braved so many dangers already! But Dobby has come to protect Halibel Potter, to warn her, even if he _does_ have to shut his ears in the oven door later…_Halibel Potter must not go back to Hogwarts_."

Bel and Undertaker stared at him.

"But I have to go back. The term starts on September first. If I don't go on the train, the school'll drop in on the Dursleys and ask, and force me to go back to school."

"No, no, no," squeaked Dobby, shaking his head so hard his ears flapped. "Halibel Potter must stay where she is safe. She is too great, too good, to lose. If Halibel Potter goes back to Hogwarts, she will be in mortal danger."

"Why?" Bel asked.

"How?" Undertaker asked.

"There is a plot, Halibel Potter, Undertaker sir. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," whispered Dobby, suddenly trembling all over. "Dobby has known it for months, sir. Halibel Potter must not put herself in peril. She is too important, miss!"

"What terrible things?" Bel asked at once. "Who's plotting them?"

Dobby made a funny choking noise. Then _crack_. Dobby disappeared from the ropes, and Bel and Undertaker found him on one of the coffins, banging his head against it.

"If you can't tell Bel, why are you warning her?" Undertaker asked as Bel once again tied him up.

"Does it involve You-Know-Who?" Bel asked.

Slowly, Dobby shook his head.

"Not-not _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_, miss-"

But Dobby's eyes were wired and he seemed to be trying to give Bel a hint. Bel, however, was completely lost.

"Then his followers?"

Dobby shook his head, his eyes wider than ever.

"Then I can't think of who else would have a chance of making horrible things happen at Hogwarts," Bel said. "I mean, there's Dumbledore, for one thing-you know who he is, don't you?"

Dobby bowed his head.

"Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. Dobby knows it, miss. Dobby has heard Dumbledore's powers rival those of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named at the height of his strength. But, miss"-Dobby's voice dropped to an urgent whisper-"there are powers Dumbledore doesn't….powers no decent wizard…"

And before Bel or Undertaker could stop him, Dobby did the same disappearing act and started banging his head against the coffin.

"I don't get it. Do you get it, Undertaker?" Bel asked as she tied Dobby up for the third time.

Undertaker grinned as widely as a Chesire cat would. "I know what he's talking about. Bel, do you want to know what he's talking about?"

"I'll ask when Dobby leaves."

"Dobby will not leave until Halibel Potter gives Dobby her word that she will not return to Hogwarts. Ah, miss, this is a danger you must not face! Say you won't go back, miss!"

"She has to go back, otherwise her friends will cause an uproar," Undertaker said.

"Friends who don't even _write_ to Halibel Potter?" Dobby said slyly.

"And how do _you_ know that," Bel said, glaring at him.

Dobby's ears fell flat, like a dog's. "Halibel Potter mustn't be angry with Dobby. Dobby did it for the best-"

_"Have you been stopping my letters?"_

"Dobby has them here, miss," said the elf. He disappeared and was in the doorway of the back room. He pulled out a wad of envelopes from the inside of the pillowcase he was wearing. Even with the distance, Bel could make out Hermione's neat writing, Ron's untidy scrawl, and even a scribble that looked as though it was from the Hogwarts gamekeeper, Hagrid.

Dobby blinked anxiously up at Bel.

"Halibel Potter mustn't be angry…Dobby hoped…if Halibel Potter thought her friends had forgotten her…Halibel Potter might not want to go back to school, miss..."

"That's…not enough to make me not want to go back to school…" Bel dead-panned as she saw her pet snakes sneaking up on Dobby to get her letters. "Hogwarts is my home. You can't stop someone from going home just because there's danger."

"Halibel Potter mustn't go back to Hogwarts!" Dobby squeaked. Bel's snakes were close enough to get her letters, if only Bel could keep Dobby a little more distracted.

"Even if you force her not to get back, there's no way the school board will take this quietly," Undertaker said.

Then Emily, an Adder, wrapped herself around Dobby's tiny neck and bit him. Dobby felt immediate and intense pain from her bite; Emily's venom toxicity may be relatively fatal towards humans, but Bel and Undertaker weren't sure how fatal it can be for a house-elf. Kent, the asp viper, bit the arm that held Bel's letters, sinking his venom into Dobby. Dobby felt that the bite from Kent was even worse. Oscar, the smooth snake, quickly grabbed the letters away.

Wordsmith, the grass snake who had snuck out of his watery habitat, towered over Dobby, making the elf petrified.

"You wish to stop Bel from going to school? Over my dead body," Bel narrated, "says Wordsmith."

"You can't stop her from going to school. There's no way she's not going back, even if there's danger," Bel narrated, "says Emily."

"If you don't want Bel to go back to Hogwarts, you'll have to kill her. But wait, that's this Voldemort's (Dobby clapped his hands over his ears and moaned, despite the pain on his neck and arm) job, isn't it?" Bel translated, "says Kent."

"I'll bet Voldemort (Dobby moaned again) will be very angry if you killed Bel just to stop her from going back to school, but then again, who's to say that that danger will only last a year? After all, this is Hogwarts we're talking about. If Bel's there, then she'll get rid of the danger in no time," Bel translated, "says Oscar."

"I will?" Bel asked, as if she didn't know she was supposed to.

"Of course! It's the precious school that's been your home for the first time!" Bel said, "says Emily."

"Bu-But Halibel Potter…." Dobby started.

"Shut up already! Unless you want me to bite you again with venom! There's plenty more where that came from!" Bel shouted, "says Kent."

Undertaker crept up to the fallen body of Dobby and said, "Your arm is swelling. Do you feel a tingling sensation? If you do, then reddish lymphatic lines and bruising may appear. Your whole limb can become swollen and bruised within 24 hours. Adder and asp viper bites are not only painful, but fatal. I must say that they are just as bad as any punishment you can receive from your family."

Undertaker grinned even wider and the shadows on his face made him look eerier and creepier than ever. "If you bother Bel like this again, even if to save her, you will suffer pain far worse than anything imaginable without the use of the three Unforgivable Curses."

Shivering, Dobby was sobbing tears. Then _crack_. He disappeared. Bel looked around to see where he went, but he wasn't in the store.

"I guess he left for good tonight," Bel narrated, "says Wordsmith."

"I still can't believe that he had the gall to stop Bel from going to school," Bel repeated, "says Emily."

"If he had wanted to keep Bel safe, then he's better off with telling that to the school board or Dumbledore," Bel added, "says Emily."

"But if he did that, then he might get punished by his family," Bel said, "says Oscar."

"In other words, if he heard about the plot, then his family must be the ones behind the danger set on Hogwarts," Bel concluded, "says Kent."

"Then we'll just make sure who doesn't go to Hogwarts are the guilty!" Bel said, "says Emily."

"But what if the danger only attacks a certain group within Hogwarts?" Undertaker suggested.

"Oh, that's true. Then Bel'll have to keep an eye out for any suspicious people," Bel said, "says Emily."

"No problem. I don't care about that anyways," Bel said. "And Undertaker, what are the three Unforgivable Curses?"

"They are terrible, Dark Art curses, known as the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus curse, and _Avada Kedavra_, the Killing Curse that had killed your parents."

Bel felt a surge of anger in her belly, and clenched her fist.

"Of course, any use of even one of the three Unforgivable Curses is enough to land you a life sentence in Azkaban, the wizard prison," Undertaker continued.

Then a loud knocking sound came from the door.

"Were we expecting any visitors?" Bel asked, "says Wordsmith."

"I don't know. It's only a little after eight," Undertaker said as the knocking continued rather harshly.

Undertaker opened the door to a very purple-faced Uncle Vernon. He was wearing his dinner jacket and a bow tie. The snakes had withdrawn into the back room as soon as Undertaker opened the door, so Uncle Vernon missed them. Uncle Vernon advanced on Bel, a demonic glint in his tiny eyes, ignoring Undertaker.

"HOW DARE YOU DO MAGIC IN MY HOUSE EVEN THOUGH YOU WEREN'T THERE!" Uncle Vernon bellowed. "WHAT DID YOU THINK WE TOLD YOU TO COME HERE FOR! DID YOU THINK THAT WE SENT YOU HERE AS PUNISHMENT!?"

"What are you talking about?" Undertaker asked, just as confused as Bel was.

"Don't you dare look as if you had nothing to do with it. Petunia's pudding fell to the floor even though she was sure that it was in the middle of the counter," Uncle Vernon said. "Then an owl came in, dropping this letter," Uncle Vernon forced a letter into Bel's hands, "on Mrs. Mason's head. Thanks to you, I lost the greatest deal of my career. Now, read it!"

Bel opened it. It was a letter from the Ministry of Magic, saying that she had used a Hover Charm back at number four, Privet Drive earlier that night, and that she was on her way to expulsion if she continued to use magic because underaged wizards weren't permitted to do magic outside of school.

Bel looked up from the letter and shared the same look of confusion with Undertaker. Uncle Vernon, however, had a mad gleam dancing in his eyes.

"You didn't tell us you weren't allowed to use magic outside school," he said. "Forgot to mention it…Slipped your mind, I daresay…."

"But she was here the entire time…" Undertaker said. "There's no way Bel could've taken out her wand when it was locked in the cupboard under the stairs…"

"And shouldn't Aunt Petunia know that I'm not allowed to use magic anyway?" Bel asked. "She was there during the summers with my mom, right? So she should know about that. I thought she told you."

"SHUT UP!" Uncle Vernon bellowed, his face more purple. He bore down on Bel like a great bulldog, all his teeth bared. "Well, I've got news for you, girl…I'm locking you up…You're never going back to that school…never…and if you try and magic yourself out-they'll expel you!"

And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Bel into the car outside and into her room once they got home, all the while ignoring Bel's pleas that she was innocent.

Bel remembered how badly Dobby didn't want her to go to Hogwarts, even at the cost of Kent biting his arm. She didn't think that Dobby would do all that. She also wondered why the Ministry of Magic thought it was her who did the magic when she was all the way at Undertaker's place.

Uncle Vernon was as bad as his word. The following morning, he paid a man to fit bars on Bel's windows. He himself fitted a cat-flap in the bedroom door, so that small amounts of food could be pushed inside three times a day. They let Bel out to use the bathroom morning and evening. Otherwise, she was locked in her room around the clock. Bel could no longer let Whitey out because Uncle Vernon had found out that she had been let out (he barged into her empty room right after the Masons left and saw Whitey's empty cage; he assumed it was another magic spell after the pudding incident), and used two locks to padlock it.

Of course Bel could've easily picked the lock, let herself out, and just stay with Undertaker. But Undertaker would've dragged her back, saying that he couldn't take her in just like that. She had also forgotten to get the stack of letters Dobby had taken from her. Whitey seemed to understand the situation and didn't complain much, only screeched once in a while to express her discomfort about not flying.

Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting, and Bel couldn't see any way out of her situation, other than picking the lock to fetch food from the fridge after they had gone to sleep. She lay on her bed, watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the window, and wondered miserably what was going to happen to her.

Life at Privet Drive had reached an all-time low. Now that the Dursleys knew that they weren't going to wake up as fruit bats, she had lost her only weapon of not being mistreated. Dobby might have saved Bel from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, but the way things were going, she'd be lucky if she doesn't starve to death.

The cat-flap rattled and Aunt Petunia's hand appeared, pushing a bowl of canned soup into the room. Bel walked across the room and took it. The soup was stone-cold, but she was used to it by now. Then she lifted some wooden boards under her bed and got out some fruit for Whitey. Bel slipped the fruit into Whitey's food tray. Whitey ruffled her feathers and gave her a look of deep disgust.

"You know I would let you go out and hunt for bugs or mice if I had my choice, but that's all we're getting," Bel said grimly.

Bel drank what was left of the soup and put the empty bowl back on the floor next to the cat-flap and lay back down on the bed.

Supposing she was still locked in for another four weeks, what would happen if she didn't turn up at Hogwarts? Surely someone would be sent to see why she hadn't come back. Would they be able to make the Dursleys let her go though?

The room was growing dark. Exhausted, mind spinning over the same unanswerable questions, Bel fell into an uneasy sleep, even with her Undertaker doll in her arms.

She dreamt that she was on show in a zoo, with a card reading **UNDERAGE WITCH** attached to her cage. People goggled through the bars at her as she lay on a bed of straw, glaring at them. She saw Dobby's face in the crowd. Dobby called, "Halibel Potter is safe there, miss!" and vanished. Angered, Bel stood up and rattled the bars, attempting to break them off. Then the Dursleys appeared and laughed at her misery.

"Shut up," Bel growled as she continued to rattle the bars. Then she woke up as the rattling continued.

Moonlight was shining through the bars on the window. And someone _was_ goggling through the bars at her: a freckle-faced, red-haired, long-nosed someone.

Ron Weasley was outside Bel's window.

* * *

I figured I should let you guys know that I'm in college right now. and don't have as much time as I used to. Of course I'm also hitting into a minor writer's block on Butler and Student. I'll get over it soon. I just need to get used to college life and I'll be great. I'll try to get working on Tsunayoshi, but like most people, college life...My roommates are awesome and my parents sent me a lot of stuff so I won't starve.

I'll try to get Tsunayoshi out and then Butler and Student, whichever finishes first.


	3. The Burrow

_"Ron!"_ Bel breathed, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars. "Ron, how did you-Should I be worried about something?"

Bel stared out the window. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked _in midair_. Grinning at Bel from the front seats were Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers.

"All right, Bel?" George asked.

"What's been going on?" Ron asked. "Why haven't you been answering my letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles-"

"That wasn't me!" Bel cried. "And what is this?"

"We're only borrowing this," Ron said. "It's Dad's, _we_ didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with-"

"I already told you, it wasn't me! Ask Undertaker! He'll tell you that it wasn't me! Anyways, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and won't let me come back, and obviously I can't do much, and either can Undertaker without alerting the authorities, so-"

"Stop gibbering," Ron said. "We've come to take you home with us."

"Then what are you gonna do?"

"Tie that around the bars," Fred said, throwing the end of a rope to Bel.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Bel muttered as she tied the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.

"Don't worry," Fred said, "and stand back."

Bel moved back into the shadows next to Whitey, who seemed to have realized how important this was and kept still and silent. The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the bars were pulled clean out of the window as Fred drove straight up in the air. Bel ran back to the window to see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, Ron hoisted them up into the car. Bel listened anxiously, but there was no sound from the Dursleys' bedroom.

When the bars were safely in the back seat with Ron, Fred reversed as close as possible to Bel's window.

"Get in," Ron said.

"Not yet. I still have a couple of things under my bed," Bel said, reaching for the loose wooden boards under her bed. Bel dashed about her room, collecting her things and passing them out of the window to Ron, Fred, and George. Lastly, she passed Whitey's cage out to Ron.

"Oh, I should write a note," Bel said just as she was halfway out the window. She found some parchment and a pen and left a note saying that Ron had picked her up, she would be staying with him for the rest of the summer, and that the Dursleys should be expecting her next summer. Taking a separate note, she quickly wrote to Undertaker that she was pick up by Ron and his brothers and that she'll be going back to Hogwarts with them.

Bel clambered into the car. Fred put his foot on the pedal and then, she was free. Bel was free from the isolated cage that was her home for the summer.

"Let Whitey out," she told Ron. "She can send my note to Undertaker. She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for a while."

George handed an ordinary hairpin to Ron and he started to pick the lock.

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick," Fred explained, "but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."

Moments later, Whitey soared joyfully out of the window to head back to the town to give Undertaker Bel's note.

"So-what's the story, Bel?" Ron asked impatiently. "What's been happening?"

Bel told them all about Dobby, the warning he'd given Bel, and the fiasco of the pudding. There was a long, shocked silence when she had finished.

"Very fishy," Fred said finally.

"Definitely dodgy," agreed George. "So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"

"I don't think he could," said Bel. "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the coffins."

She saw Fred and George look at each other.

"What, you think he was lying to me?" Bel said.

"Well," said Fred, "put it this way-house-elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?"

"Yes," Bel and Ron said together, instantly.

"Draco Malfoy," Bel explained. "He hates me."

"Draco Malfoy?" Geroge asked, turning around. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son?"

"Must be, it's not a very common name, is it?" Bel asked. "Why?"

"I've heard Dad talking about him," George said. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."

"And when You-Know-Who disappeared," said Fred, craning around to look at Bel, "Lucius Malfoy came back saying he's never meant any of it. Load of dung-Dad reckons he was right in You-Know-Who's inner circle."

Bel had heard the rumors about Malfoy's family before, and they didn't surprise her at all. Malfoy made her cousin Dudley look like a kind, thoughtful, and sensitive boy.

"I don't know whether the Malfoys own a house-elf…" Bel said.

"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," Fred said.

"Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing," Goerge said. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house…."

Bel was silent. Judging by the fact that Draco Malfoy usually had the best of everything, his family was rolling in wizard gold; she could just see Malfoy strutting around a large manor house. Sending the family servant to stop Bel from going back to Hogwarts also sounded exactly like the sort of thing Malfoy would do. Had Bel been stupid to take Dobby seriously? But then again, Undertaker had mentioned something about investigating around the history of Hogwarts before she was taken away by Uncle Vernon.

"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," said Ron. "I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. I thought it was Errol's fault at first-"

"Who's Errol?"

"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes-"

_"Who?"_

"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," said Fred from the front.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me," said Ron. "Said he needed him."

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," George said, frowning. "And he _has_ been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room…I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge…You're driving too far west, Fred," he added, pointing at a compass on the dashboard. Fred twiddled the steering wheel.

"So, does your dad know you've got the car?" Bel asked, guessing the answer.

"Er, no," said Ron, "he had to work tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it."

"Taking something out this big? I doubt it," Bel said, which made the Weasley brothers pale.

"That's the main road," George said, peering down through the windshield. "We'll be there in ten minutes…Just was well, it's getting light…"

A faint pinkish glow was visible along the horizon to the east.

Fred brought the car lower, and Bel saw a dark patchwork of fields and clumps of trees.

"We're a little way outside the village," said George. "Otter St. Catchpole."

Lower and lower went the flying car. The edge of a brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees.

"Touchdown!" said Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground. They had landed next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, and Bel looked out for the first time at Ron's house.

It looked as though it had once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked it looked as though it were held up by magic (which, Bel reminded herself, it probably was). Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read, **THE BURROW**. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around the yard.

"It's not much," Ron said.

"It's _awesome_," Bel said happily, thinking of Privet Drive. But she was sadden for not being able to say 'See you next summer' to Undertaker in person.

They got out of the car.

"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly," Fred said, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. We told Ginny, our sister, that you're coming, so Bel'll hide in her room. Then, Ginny'll come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Bel and no one need ever know we flew the car."

"Does the car run on gas when it's flying?" Bel asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Then your dad will probably know."

"Don't worry. He'll probably reckon that he didn't check properly."

"Come on, Bel, Ginny sleep at the-at the-" Ron had gone a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The other three wheeled around.

Mrs. Weasley was marching across the yard, scattering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind-faced woman, it was remarkable how much she looked like a saber-toothed tiger.

"_Ah,"_ said Fred.

"Oh, dear," George said.

Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.

_"So,"_ she said.

"Morning, Mum," said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.

"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to-"

All three of Mrs. Weasley's sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them. Bel briefly wondered if this was what people saw when Bel would scold Undertaker, if there was any audience.

_"Beds empty! No note! Car gone-could have crashed-out of my mind with worry-did you care?-never, as long as I've lived-you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy-"_

"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have _died_-"

"We probably would've just used the floating charm if the car had stopped flying or something," Bel said, which Mrs. Weasley didn't hear over her shouting.

"-you could have been _seen_-"

"But the light didn't come out until a couple minutes ago, and if anyone really did see us, they'd probably think that the car was some airplane," Bel added, looking at the scarlet sunrise.

"-you could have lost your father his _job_-"

_"_Considering how his department's the kind of job nobody wants, I'm pretty sure he'll be demoted at most if we really did get seen. Well, I don't know how the Ministry works," Bel wondered.

It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse before she turned to Bel, who had a blank face, completely used to someone scolding another person (i.e. Grell and his boyfriend).

"I've very pleased to see you, Bel, dear," she said. "Come in and have some breakfast."

"Thank you," Bel said.

She turned and walked back into the house, and Bel followed her.

The kitchen was small and rather cramped. There was a scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the middle, and Bel sat down on the edge of her seat, looking around. She had never been in a wizard house before.

The clock on the wall opposite her had only one hand and no numbers at all. written around the edge were things like _Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens,_ and _You're late._

"With a clock like that, no wonder she found out and it's not because she woke up early," Bel pointed out to Ron.

Books were stacked three deep on the mantelpiece, books with titles like _Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking, _and _One Minute Feasts-It's Magic!_ And unless Bel's ears were deceiving her, the old radio next to the sink had just announced that coming up was "Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck."

Mrs. Weasley was clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons as she threw sausages into the frying pan. Every now and then she muttered things like "don't know _what_ you were thinking of," and "_never_ would have believed it."

"I don't blame _you_, dear," she assured Bel, tipping four or five sausages onto her plate. "Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really," (she was now adding three fried eggs to her plate) "flying an illegal car halfway across the country-anyone could have seen you-"

She flicked her wand casually at the dishes in the sink, which began to clean themselves, clinking gently in the background.

"It was _cloudy_, Mum!" said Fred.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.

"They were starving her, Mum!" George added.

"And you!" said Mrs. Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Bel bread and buttering it for her, which Bel thought was too much.

At that moment there was a diversion in the form of a small, red-headed figure, who appeared in the kitchen. She gave Bel an astonished look, as though she couldn't believe Bel was in her house, shyly sat down in an empty chair and looked away from Bel.

"This is Ginny," Ron whispered to Bel. "She's been talking about you all summer."

"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Bel," Fred said with a grin, but he caught his mother's eye and bent his face over his plate without another word. Nothing more was said until all six plates were clean, which took a surprising short time.

"_Blimey_, I'm tired," yawned Fred, setting down his knife and fork at last. "I think I'll go to bed and-"

"You will not," snapped Mrs. Weasley. "It's your own fault you've been up all night. you're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again-"

"Oh, Mum-"

"And you two," she said, glaring at Ron and Fred. "You can go up to bed, dear," she added to Bel. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car-"

But Bel, who felt wide awake, said quickly, "I'll help Ron and the other. I've never seen a de-gnoming-"

"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's men's work," said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject-"

And she pulled a heavy book from the stack on the mantelpiece. George groaned.

"Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden-"

Bel looked at the cover of Mrs. Weasley's book. Written across it in fancy gold letters were the words _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_. There was a big photograph on the front of a very good-looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. As always in the wizarding world, the photograph was moving; the wizard, who Bel supposed was Gilderoy Lockhart, kept winking cheekily up at them all. Mrs. Weasley beamed down at him.

"Oh, he is marvelous," she said. "He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book…"

"Mum _fancies_ him," said Fred, in a very audible whisper.

"Don't be ridiculous, Fred," said Mrs. Weasley, her cheeks rather pink. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it."

Yawning and grumbling, the Weasleys slouched outside with Bel trailing behind them. Then, Mrs. Weasley caught Bel by her arm.

"Bel, rather than doing that dull work, why don't Ginny show you where you'll be sleeping? I'll come up later with your things from the car."

Ginny, blushed red at the thought of showing her idol around her house, was appalled her mother's suggestion. In truth, Bel wanted to de-gnome the garden so she could see what a wizard's garden looked like, but it's not like this'll be her only chance at seeing the garden; there's plenty of other chances since she's living with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer.

"All right then," Bel said, staying inside the house.

Ginny turned on her heels and walked stiffly towards where the staircase is.

"You don't have to be so nervous," Bel said, catching up to Ginny.

Ginny jumped, hearing her voice. Ignoring what she said, Ginny led her down a narrow passageway to an uneven staircase, which wound its way, zigzagging up through the house. On the third landing, Ginny got off and opened the door.

Bel followed her into her room. Ginny's room was very clean and full of what seemed to be secondhand items: the bedspread, the organized books, her dresser. Then she turned to Ginny, who was watching her almost nervously, as though waiting for her opinion.

Bel grinned at her, saying, "This is the best house I've ever been in."

Ginny blushed red, redder than she was when she saw that Bel was in the kitchen.

"So I'm going to be sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag, right?" Bel asked.

"N-no! You can sleep in my bed!" Ginny exclaimed, as if allowing her idol to sleep in her room on the floor was forbidden.

"But then we'll crowd," Bel replied.

"I-I'll sleep on the floor!"

"Uh. This is your house. You're sleeping on your bed, I'm sleeping in the sleeping bag."

"NO!"

"What are you shouting for, Ginny?" Mrs. Weasley asked, coming in with Bel's things through the ajar door.

"Nothing. We were just arguing about sleeping arrangements," Bel answered.

"Oh, yes. Well, I suppose you'll have to sleep on the floor with lots of blankets and pillows," Mrs. Weasley said. "Wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable, after all."

"It's all right. I can just sleep in a sleeping bag," Bel said. "I packed one inside my doll."

"All right then."

Bel looked out the tiny window. In the field far below she could see the Weasley brothers pulling something out of the ground in a large garden and throwing far away after twirling it.

"The things they're throwing around? Are those the gnomes?" Bel asked.

"Yes. Those gnomes love to stay in gardens like ours," Mrs. Weasley explained. "We could set up a charm to keep them away, but Arthur's too soft with them. They'll be back after the boys are done with them…"

Just then, the front door slammed.

"Oh, he's home!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, rushing back down.

Bel quickly followed with Ginny after her. The girls encountered the boys on their way in from the garden.

Mr. Weasley was slumped in a kitchen chair with his glasses off and his eyes closed. He was a thin man, going bald, but the little hair he had was as red as any of his children's. He was wearing long green robes, which were dusty and travel-worn.

"What a night," he mumbled, groping for the teapot as the kids all sat down round him. Mrs. Weasley seemed to have gone to tend to the kitchen. "Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned…"

Mr. Weasley took a long gulp of tea and sighed.

"Find anything, Dad?" Fred said eagerly.

"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle," yawned Mr. Weasley. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness…"

"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" George asked.

"Just Muggle-baiting," sighed Mr. Weasley. "Sell them a key that keeps on shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it…Of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking-they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face…But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe-"

"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?"

Mrs. Weasley had appeared, holding a long poker like a sword. Mr. Weasley's eyes jerked open. He stared guiltily at his wife.

_'Busted…'_ Bel thought.

"C-cars, Molly, dear?"

"Yes, Arthur, cars," said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes flashing. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly."

Mr. Weasley blinked.

"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if-er-he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth…There's a loophole in the law, you'll find…As long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't-"

"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Bel arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"

"Bel?" Mr. Weasley said blankly. "Bel who?"

He looked around, saw the Bel who's waving her hand up to get noticed, and jumped.

"Good lord, is it Halibel Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about-"

"Your sons flew that car to Bel's house and back last night!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"

"Did you really?" Mr. Weasley eagerly asked. "Did it go all right? I-I mean," he faltered as sparked flew from Mrs. Weasley's eyes, "that-that was very wrong, boys-very wrong indeed…"

"Let's leave them to it," Ron muttered to Bel as Mrs. Weasley swelled like a bullfrog. "Come on, I'll show you my bedroom."

They slipped out of the kitchen and up the staircase. Bel and Ron climbed two flights after Ginny's floor until they reached a door with peeling paint and a small plaque on it, saying RONALD'S ROOM.

Bel stepped in, her head almost touching the sloping ceiling, and blinked. It was like walking into a furnace. Nearly everything in Ron's room seemed to be a violent shade of orange: the bedspread, the walls, even the ceiling. Then Bel realized that Ron had covered nearly every itch of the shabby wallpaper with posters of the same seven witches and wizards, all wearing bright orange robes, carrying broomsticks, and waving energetically.

"Your Quidditch team?" Bel asked.

"The Chudley Cannons," Ron said, pointing at the orange bedspread, which was emblazoned with two giant black C's and a speeding cannonball. "Ninth in the league."

Ron's school spellbooks were stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics that all seemed to feature _The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_. Ron's magic wand was lying on top of a fish tank full of frog spawn on the windowsill, next to his fat gray rat, Scabbers, who was snoozing in a patch of sun.

Bel stepped over a pack of Self-Shuffling playing cards on the floor and looked out of the tiny window. In the field far below, she could see what she thought to be gnomes sneaking one by one back through the Weasley's hedge. Then she turned to look at Ron, who was watching her almost, nervously, as though waiting for her opinion.

Bel stilted her giggle. _'Like sister, like brother,'_ she thought.

"It's a bit small," Ron said quickly. "Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And I'm right underneath the ghoul in the attic; he's always banging on the pipes and groaning…"

But Bel, grinning widely, said, "You know, I told your sister this is the best house I've ever been in."

Ron's face became red, making Bel stifle her laughter. _'Like sister, like brother...'_

* * *

Sorry for taking so long. I'm working on the next chapter of Tsunayoshi, so it's gonna take a while before I can post up the next chapter of Butler and Student, or Halibel Potter


End file.
